Barns of Minnesota
Minnesota’s barns are remarkable testaments to a Midwestern way of life, one centered on the land, work, family, ingenuity, and perseverance. In a new venture for Will Weaver, he collaborates with photographer Doug Ohman on a fiction book to showcase the striking variety of these exceptional landmarks.
Built by hand in wood, stone, brick, or metal, these barns date back as far as 1880. Where Ohman’s photographs capture the beauty of the barn from the outside in, Will Weaver’s evocative story illuminates the life of the barn from the inside out. Readers witness the making and breaking of one barn as it plays into the life and sustenance of several generations of one family who settled the land in 1922 and who farmed into the age of agribusiness–and the end of big barns. Seventy-five beautiful color photographs accompanied by Weaver’s moving story uplift these beautiful buildings and a way of life on the land.
“[B]y far the best book yet on the vanishing icons of our rural landscape.”—Robert Hedin
Author Commentary
I had to be sold on this Minnesota Historical Society project; after all, I’m a fiction writer. But after seeing Doug Ohman’s photos, I agreed to write–something. I wanted to do more than write captions; my solution was to write the imagined life of one barn. It turned out to be a lovely book.
